CONSEQUENCES OF SIN

Today’s commentary will be brief for you that are busy. It is about the consequences of sin. We often forget that. Whenever we think that we got away with something, ‘Consequence’ punishes us.

For instance, those seemingly silly dietary laws that faithful Jews obey are to prevent unwanted consequences. God so loves the world that He wants that they never perish. Those dietary laws that many disregard as nonsensical are essential for longevity. God wants us in His realm, but in His time, not ours. People put things into their mouths and veins that just do not belong there!

Consequences are God’s way of saving ourselves from self-destruction.

Original sin was as if breaking all the commandments, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:19).

Breaking the lesser commandments are not damning but diminishing. Apparently there are levels of sin and levels of consequences. You get to choose your own consequences by either neglecting the will of God — those commandments — or abiding by the Law which are God’s Will that are enumerated.

Of course, dietary laws are lesser laws, but they remain God’s Will. You can certainly break them without fear of eternal death, but you might die young and even wear a smaller ‘crown’ in Heaven.

There are both lesser and greater sins. Sins are not equal in stature, but unpardoned sins suffer the same consequences.

Sins cannot be pardoned unless they are repented of. Thus, each time Christians sins, Jesus said to pray; forgive is our trespasses and, “When you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any” (Mark 11:25).

Trespassing is violating the Laws of God’s ‘Estate,’ so to speak. Whenever anyone becomes an adopted son of God, it is expected that they abide by the rules of God’s Estate, or like trespassing anywhere, there are consequences.

Christians still sin after pardoned. It is the nature of mankind to sin. Therefore, each sin must be repented of, and God is faithful to pardon. With that said, even with a Divine Pardon, there are still consequences. Chapter three of Genesis is about sin and its consequences for all the parties. Even the so-called ‘Serpent’ will pay for its sins that are many and great.

The greater sins are called ‘cardinal sins’ by Catholics. Many Christians fail to recognize the ‘Screech Owl Sin” (Isa 34:14), using my own words — blasphemy of the Holy Ghost (Mat 12:31). Jesus even told Pilate that there were greater sins than his own. He was perhaps referring to the sins of the chief priests and Judas.

Judas’s consequence was foretold early on. Satan (the ‘Serpent’) had entered Judas, and the death of Jesus defeated Satan.

After original sin, the Word (Jesus) meted out consequences; for the Serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of thy life…” (Gen 3:14). It was foretold that Satan would suffer death as a consequence of its sins.

Usually, consequences happen both immediately and eventually. For Adam and Eve, they began to die. No longer was the woman of Adam but became independent. Her name was not ‘Eve’ but that was her new kind as the “mother of all living.” (Gen 3:20). She changed genetically from what she was before, and she failed to notice it (for only awhile as sacred literature reveals.).

Likewise, Adam’s kind’s longevity was reduced to 930 years. Adam began to die at that very moment and the ‘carbon clock’ within him began to tick. His consequence was immediate — withering or aging — but the long-term consequence was death just as God foretold… unless he wore the Garment of God at all times (The Whole Armor of God?)

Whenever anyone sins, they may not perceive the consequence. One consequence is alienation from God. That was what happened to Eve; she became alien to God and to Adam. Her new nature was ‘Lilith,’ the screech owl. That was the consequence of the greater sin that she did.

For the Serpent. He would crawl and eat dust, whatever that means, but there would be a long-term consequence as well — “on his belly he shall go.” That would not come true for 5500 years or so as the Books of Adam and Eve reveal. Then the long-term consequence came about when Jesus died, and so did the ‘Serpent;’

Judas with Satan in him hanged himself, then the long-term consequence came about, “This man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18).

His going was not crawling but going to Hell where he belonged! He fell headlong! That is how he would go, and on his belly just as the Word had foretold, “he burst asunder in the midst.” The Devil also has long-term consequences, and in the end, his wage for sin is the lake of fire. “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev 20:14). ‘Death’ is Satan and ‘Hell’ is his abode. Hell will be removed from the Third Heaven and go to who knows where?

But those whose ‘father’ remains the devil; they too will suffer long-term, even eternal consequences, “And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:15). Those two things are future consequences of sin that God revealed to John.

You cannot escape consequences, neither immediate nor long-term. The problem is that the pleasure of sin conceals the immediate consequence and feeling free from that, the long-term consequences seem beyond reason as if God forgets unrepented sins. He does not!

Now consider, Salome’s sin, Herod’s (Antipas) niece and step-daughter: 

When Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask and she, being before instructed of her mother, said, “Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger.”

And the king was sorry. Nevertheless, for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her.

And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. And his head was brought in a charger and given to the damsel: and she brought it to her mother.

And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus. (Mat 14:6-12)

 First consider Herod. The immediate consequence was sorrow, but he may have never repented. He went halfway to repentance but not all the way.

In the long-term, things began to go bad for him. Like Adam, he worked by the ‘sweat of his face’ to acquire the throne of Judea, but in the end, Agrippa was rewarded. Caesar had turned against his ‘friend.’

As I wrote yesterday, I believe the Emmaus Walk of Jesus was to give one last chance for Herod to see that indeed, He was God in the flesh and not the Ghost of John the Baptist who came to haunt him.

If Jesus did that, then Herod may have been persuaded to become a Christian, but if that was not the case, then Herod is in Hell right now, according to the justice of God. Hell is the last consequence that makes one who fears God to trust Him for reprieve. Hopefully, even wicked Herod was able to see Jesus as God when Jesus may have visited him in glorified flesh.

Now consider Salome, the daughter of Herod’s wife Herodias. She seemed proud that she had pleased her wicked mother at the expense of an empathetic Herod. The head of John was no more than a trophy for her mother, ostensibly to celebrate their defiance of John the Baptist and God.

If she was not totally depraved, she should have sensed some shame for what she had done. Perhaps after she danced the Dance of the Seven Veils, she put on some more clothes as Eve did so long ago. However, the best guess is that making a name for herself that is still remembered overcame any sorrowful feelings. Right then, unknown to Salome, she began to die!

Well, she would have anyway, but God planned her death. It would not be immediate, but she would have to suffer the consequences of that great sin!

Salome as well as Herodias and Herod suffered dire consequences, according to history: 

Wherefore the just vengeance of God burned against all who were concerned in this crime (of beheading John).

Herod was defeated by Aretas. Afterwards he was banished with Herodias to Lyons, and deprived of his tetrarchy and everything by Caligula, at the instigation of Agrippa, the brother of Herodias, as Josephus relates (xvii. 10).

Moreover, the head of the dancing daughter was cut off by means of ice. Hear what Nicephorus says, “As she was journeying once in the winter-time, and a frozen river had to be crossed on foot, the ice broke beneath her, not without the providence of God. Straightway she sank down up to her neck. This made her dance and wriggle about with all the lower parts of her body, not on land, but in the water. Her wicked head was glazed with ice, and at length severed from her body by the sharp edges, not of iron, but of the frozen water.

Thus in the very ice she displayed the dance of death, and furnished a spectacle to all who beheld it, which brought to mind what she had done.” Hear also L. Dexter (in Chron. A. C. 34), “Herod Antipas, with Herodias his incestuous mistress, was banished first to Gaul, and afterwards to Ilerda in Spain. Herodias dancing upon the river Sicoris when it was frozen, fell through the ice, and perished miserably.” (Cornelius À Lapide. The Great Commentary. chapter 6. v. 28.) (Calahan 2005)

 Again, that quotation is from history. There were indeed short-term consequences as can be seen by Calahan above, but the eternal consequences were much greater!

Even if Herod was persuaded to become a Christian, according to my earlier commentary, he still suffered the loss of fame and fortune. Herod was soon defeated in battle by the Arabians, Herodias fell through ice and froze solidly, and like Herod whose head Salome desired, God desired hers for justice to be met.

The Law of God for the Jews were this: 

Then shall you do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shall you put the evil away from among you.  And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And your eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deut 19:19-21)

 God did not pity Salome nor her mother. They suffered the consequences of their sins, and so did Herod. They thought that they had escaped the Law when they moved away, but justice followed. You cannot hide from God nor divine justice.

God is merciful, however. Upon sinning, if sorrow leads to repentance — serious repentance — then the sin is canceled out and God forgets it (Jer 31:34). He does not forget the way we think of it, but He chooses to no longer to hold the sin against us. That, in theological terms, is the gist of ‘justification,’ not just as we never sinned, but that God never again holds that sin against us, meaning that once forgiven, no more repentance is necessary.

However, there does remain the consequences of sin. We remember the sin and hopefully choose to do it no more. (I still wrestle in sleepless nights remembering my sins that I try to forget but know that I deserve death. That is a consequence of that sin.)

We are not God, and we should never forget that we are sinners safe by grace, to put it literally. God, for instance, kept Herod safe because of his sorrow, but whether or not he was saved remains debatable.

You may never know it, but even the lesser sins have consequences. At some time, all those lesser sins must be repented of because if they are not, the lesser sins compound into greater sins until damnation may be the final consequence.

(I seemed to have been mistaken about brevity and for that I am sorry.)